The Big Ride!

In an airplane that is. Although Aarush travelled by air about 20 times till now the recent trip we made(Jan'2012 to Detroit) was the only one as a big boy(put in his words) and he was very
excited about it. He is now very well aware of the airplanes, pilots, the big noise they make, thanks to those million youtube videos on airplanes!

He got his own seat, my little baby is not more a baby to those airline folks!
He was very happy to have his own seat and preferred a window seat when we gave him a choice. He peeped through the window looking at all the service vehicles that come around and other air-crafts parked beside ours.
he has been a very good boy the entire trip, never got down from his seat which I feared he would but sat flipping through the pages of sky mall magazines(dude!) and other books I took with me!
I hope our next India trip to be this smooth!

Vacation it is(was)!

We had a much needed( didn't we had one to India th year already?) SoCal vacation in Dec'10( I was too lazy to publish the draft). San Diago and LA marked off the list of the places to visit in US.We also got to met our cousin Kishore in SD. The weather was at its best for this time of the year and the general holiday ambiance made it even more memorable.

For the long flight trip I got this awesome idea( Its my blog and I can totally boast!) of buying Aarush a set of hot wheels and giving it to him only in the flight. What an idea it was, he was fascinated by those little cars which kept him busy (and us sane) for the first few hours and then he slept off!
Relaxing!














Harbor view from our room!














We visited Seaport village, Zoo and Legoland in SD, the best of which for a toddler was Legoland. Although he was not allowed in many rides, there were enough for him to play around. Kiran and I had equal fun and would totally visit it again after Aarush grows up a little older. Aarush straightaway hit the water sprinklers and refused to leave the place. He wouldn't get off the train the first time so Kiran went with him the second time and he was a happy man.

@Legoland

It was so cute watching him pick and give the lego blocks to a mom-daughter building with legos.

The miniland USA was an eye candy. We went on a boat ride, took pics with bob-the builder, whom aarush loved and went on slides ,slides and more slides.

SD zoo is huge. Their effort of preserving soo many animals, soon to be extinct species and building a forest like environment has to be appreciated. Although we incline more towards the idea of 'animals should not be caged', we came to know that their life span increases when under care.
@SD Zoo

There were some exotic animals which we saw for the very first time. Aarush wasn't too excited initially but got into the mood a little later. We might not pay a second visit unless Aarush is into animal research and insist that we go!

LA was more relaxing and was warmer than SD. Though we did not visit any toddler friendly places except for may be malibu beach he had total fun with cousins Chaitanya and Anu. I did not expect them to get along so well 'coz he was scared when my cousin Kishore tried to friend him.

He would comfortably say bye to us when chait was around and only played with him the whole time. Chait and Anu gifted him a cute tricycle and he was all the more excited. Looking at the fun he had I wish we stayed closer to atleast some of the gazzillion cousins we have.
Kiran insisted that I write about the “Wasabi” experience. This is something Not About Aarush;) He slept peacefully while we were at the restaurant! So Chait & Anu took us to this Chinese restaurant called Wokcano in LA and suggested we eat the vegetarian sushi with wasabi. Wasabi is a spice from Japan and is a root. Now, it‘s not spicy like chilies but it slowly explodes in your mouth and the effect is believed to irritate your nasal passage. So it was kind of a thrill to eat and experience wasabi with sushi. The effect ofcourse is for a short time and goes off  as you take the next bite of food.We enjoyed it so much that Kiran and I had to eat it twice and chait and anu did not want to stop.

Flight back to home was a little rough, Aarush was sleepy but refused to sleep and so was cranky for a good 1.5 hrs. After which he slept off and so us. In both of our flights, our co-passengers were nice enough to not mind Aarush's frequent hand poking towards their window side or grabbing their cups. Infact in the first flight she even took a picture of Aarush and was wishing for a grandson and the other lady mentioned about her 2 boys and that shez been through this age. Nice ppl they are!

First Christmas!

Aarush and I made a trip to NJ for Christmas to visit my sis, BIL and little niece Megha.It was Aarush's second flight and I was a little apprehensive about managing him all by myself. So with Aarush in one hand and all the paraphernalia in the other we set out for our vacation.To give a hint, this is what I had to carry- Aarush, his car seat, stroller, diaper bag( a huge one at that), my purse, his body suit(what is with winters here?), my jacket and his blanket.

Flight was very smooth, I fed him during take off, covered his ears and he dozed off only to wake up 10 minutes before landing. The tough part was to hold him in my arms for 2.5 hrs, tough because I had to fight my sleep, stay awake and try not to drop him.

We had great time in NJ, Aarush comfortably played with all of Megha's toys and didn't quite like Megha coming towards him to grab her toys:)
Little Megha is beyond cuteness, she can crawl and would come to Aarush whenever she spots a new toy in his hands. I should do a separate post on her. It was soo good to watch them both play, coo and cry. Sis's home has hard wood floor and Aarush banged his head a couple of times in an attempt to crawl, sit and now he can crawl backwards. We took lot of pictures, met friends and family and all in all it was a great trip, only Kiran was missing.

Our flight back tested my patience. We reached airport around 2:45 PM for our flight at 4: 00 PM , cleared the security and was waiting to board then comes the announcement that the flight was delayed because the crew hasn't arrived, so we wait and then comes another one saying our terminal has changed from A to C, we are talking about Newark airport I mean its bigggg and takes long to go from terminal A to C . Cursing the stars I went to terminal C and there was a good 1.5 hrs wait time, I changed his diaper , played with him a bit and it was almost time to feed, I gave him milk and he slept off just before boarding. This time I managed to read a magazine, drink, eat, lift the diaper bag up and down and mix formula- all with a sleeping baby in my arms. ( ambidextrous anyone?) Aarush woke up exactly 5 minutes before landing, I fed him again, read a book( he enjoys the 'how big?' book each time I read to him) and finally arrived home, sweet home.

Aarush seemed to miss his dad , cause he wasn't at his active best and when we came back he was all laughing, screaming, kicking looking at his dad.
Here are some of the pictures from our trip.